Category: Batman

 

By Various (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84023-969-7

2004’s big crossover event throughout the regularly published Batman family of titles was called War Games, which was collected almost before you knew it – as these things usually are. One of the major problems with these publishing events is they don’t start, occur, or finish in a vacuum. Many of the events leading up to War Games were published as disparate shorter stories from the aforementioned family canon of titles. One such bunch of these featuring stories from Robin #126-128 and Detective Comics #790-796 are gathered together in the prequel War Drums.

Anything I tell you about the events of these stories (which, if you’re chronologically asking, begin just after the end of the Hush storyline – Batman: Hush vol 1 ISBN: 1-84023-718-X and vol 2 ISBN: 1-84023-738-4) beyond the fact that Robin’s girlfriend Spoiler is groomed to take his place would in fact constitute a gross spoiler of the other kind. You wouldn’t need to read some rather well-written stories by Bill Willingham and Andersen Gabrych, drawn by the likes of Pete Woods, Damion Scott and Brad Walker with all the usual contributions from a whole lot of other people, which would be a shame.

This is standard Batman fare, which, if you’re a Batman fan, you would like. There are evil pop divas, kidnapped babies, loads of fighting and for a change, teen angst is kept to a minimum. There is however an inescapable feeling of characters treading water while waiting for a hammer to fall.

© 2005 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

 

By Matt Wagner (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-495-1

The concluding volume of Matt Wagner’s reinterpretation of two of Batman’s earliest and most iconic triumphs features a classic duel with the Dark Knight’s most obvious antithesis – a vampire. A flamboyant, magical bat monster to combat the grim, steely rationalism of this hero was an obvious conceit when Gardner Fox wrote it in 1939 (Detective Comics #31 and #32 – most recently reprinted in Batman Chronicles Volume 1 ISBN 1-84576-036-0) and Wagner proves that it still has merit.

Following on from Batman and the Monster Men with the sub-plot of Bruce Wayne’s first girlfriend Julie Madison and her tragically flawed father, this subtle blending of high gothic fantasy and modern Goth sensibility sees a mysterious cult leader moving into the upper and lower echelons of Gotham society, recruiting thugs , seducing the glitterati and killing at a whim.

Still in his first year of his mission, the inexperienced Batman must reassess his role and his beliefs before his city can be saved.

This is great story-telling, beautifully illustrated, paying proper respect to the triumphs of the past whilst reverently refreshing them for the modern reader. This is a classic Batman that everybody can enjoy – and should.

© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By A. J. Lieberman, Al Barrionuevo & Javier Pina (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-258-4

The worst thing about major events in comics publishing – as elsewhere, sadly – is the blind compulsion to follow up and cash in on them. There were a whole bunch of years between Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and the recent sequel, and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons have thus far resisted all urgings to revisit Watchmen. But it was inevitable that Hush, Batman’s dark opposite, would return sooner rather than later.

Relying on the tired plot premise that ‘everything you know is wrong’, and yet another string of guest-stars to bolster a weak and confusing storyline. Here it involves a battle for crime supremacy among insane super-criminals (Joker, Riddler and even the Penguin) intent on outsmarting each other, but this frankly bewildering mess could have benefited from fewer chapters and stricter editing, although the art is pretty good and Batman fans as much as any follower of long-running characters, have grown used to dry patches and occasional troughs between all those epic high points.

Originally published in Gotham Knights issues #50-55, the volume also contains a nominal epilogue from issue #66 featuring Hush’s hired thug Prometheus and the assorted villains from the criminal Society that plagued DC’s hero community since the onset of Infinite Crisis. This one is so very Not Recommended for anyone trying a graphic novel for the first time.

© 2004, 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

Volume 1
By Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee and Scott Williams (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-84023-718-X

 

Volume 2
By Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee and Scott Williams (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-84023-738-4

These are collections of the multi-part, mega-epic that ran in Batman #608-619. The plot is pretty negligible, as a mysterious foe assembles all the Dark Knight’s arch-enemies to have another pop at him, and despite only introducing one new character, dares us all to guess who the mastermind can possibly be.

Overblown, over-hyped and histrionic, it’s the perfect equivalent to the mindless, summer-movie blockbuster, technically and visually attractive but with no real meat on its bones. Such a disappointment considering the quality that all the creators are capable of producing.

Still, this is the shallow stuff that modern dreams seem made of and absolutely reeks of glitter, angst and testosterone in equal measure. Flashy and, I’m sure, a secret, guilty pleasure for many, I can only hope that as often happens, what succeeding creators do with the aftermath will make all the fuss eventual worthwhile and sensible.

™ & © 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Judd Winick & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-199-5

This tale (from Batman #635 – 641) introduces a brand new force to the streets of Gotham City. The Red Hood, originally a prototype criminal alias for the man who would become the Joker, is back and making a name for himself among the criminal hierarchies. Is he just another super-thug or does he have a more sinister agenda? How does he know so much about the secrets and methods of the Batman?

I’m not going to tell you. This fast-paced puff piece is fairly predictable if you accept the twin principles of modern comic books that nobody stays dead and that all writers think they can double-bluff their readers. Nonetheless, there’s plenty of action and pathos as the new playing order in Gotham sorts itself out prior to the major events all DC editors would like us to start our anticipatory salivations over. Stay tuned, Bat-Fans!

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Devin Grayson, Paul Gulacy & Jimmy Palmiotti (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-254-1

Produced to cash in on the movie Batman Begins this run of the mill adventure is set after the death of the immortal Eco-warrior and criminal mastermind. Batman is sent on a quest to restore a dubiously ‘New Age-y’ balance to the Earth, which he inadvertently disrupted when he destroyed all of Ras al Ghul’s life-restoring ‘Lazarus Pits’, mystical chemical baths which would now appear to be the planet’s way of voiding detrimental energies.

Galvanised into action by a posthumous letter from al Ghul, and the distressing fact that all over the planet dead things and people are coming back to a ghastly semblance of life, Batman goes on a very pretty, monotonously action-packed but terribly silly rampage of action before he restores the natural order. Why haven’t all the mystical busybodies that guard the planet noticed before now? Where are Superman and the Justice League?

Rushed and ill-considered, and with plot holes you could drive a fleet of hearses through, this disappointing jumble from the usually excellent Devin Grayson will hopefully be soon forgotten. Surely this is one graphic novel that only the most non-discriminating Bat-fan could love.

© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Greg Rucka and Klaus Janson (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84023-951-4

One of the biggest problems with the truly iconic characters is that once their periodical adventures are over there’s the inevitable rush to collect the tale as a book. Sadly, a lot of these tales just aren’t that good.

Death and the Maidens deals with the destruction of possibly the last great Bat villain – Ra’s Al Ghul – due to the machinations of his daughters Nyssa and Talia. The latter has been yet another villainess/love interest for Batman since the 1970’s but Nyssa is new and as the tale progresses through a series of flashbacks the reader discovers the hell that the immortal mastermind has subjected her to over the centuries, and how she has responded.

The conveniently dying villain appears to Batman and offers to put him in touch with his dead parents through an (al)chemical solution in return for a cessation of the hero’s campaign of destruction on the sources of Al Ghul’s immortality. How logical is that?

I don’t care how screwed up he is by their death. No one as calculating as Batman stops a ten year all-out war with a monster who intends to destroy the human race – particularly one with a history of using chemical and bacteriological weapons – on the promise of a pharmaceutical séance, especially when he’s on the verge of winning.

More importantly it serves no purpose in advancing the narrative, but seems there solely as a way injecting some heroic angst into the mix. Long story short, after loads of trauma and action the girls succeed and Nyssa replaces her father as head of his organization, and therefore as Batman’s implacable foe. Any bets on how long he stays dead? Creators Rucka and Janson can do so much better.

© 2003, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Grant Morrison and Dave McKean (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-022-0

This is, by all accounts, “the best-selling original graphic novel in… comics history”, which, obviously does not mean it is the best written or drawn. It is, however, pretty damned good. A brooding, moody script was treated as a bravura exercise in multimedia experimental illustration, literally changing the way artists and consumers thought about the pictures in comics. The attendant media play also spread throughout society, and as with Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns generated one of those infrequently recurring periods when Comics become Cool. All those big budget super-hero movies you’ve enjoyed or suffered through might not have happened without these media zeitgeist moments.

On the most basic level, however, it’s still a fine tale of the hero having to overcome terrible foes, terrific odds and traumatic trials to vanquish evil as the Caped Crusader fights his way through the freed lunatics that have taken over their asylum to save a hostage from the ravages of the Joker.

This 15th Anniversary edition also includes Morrison’s original script and page breakdowns, offering those of you intrigued by the mechanics of comic creation a hard lesson in production and inspiration.

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Bob Kane & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-431-5

This edition of the economy collections of Batman’s early adventures takes us from December 1940 to April 1941. By reprinting the Caped Crusader’s exploits in chronological order this way we get to see the strip develop, but also learn that as he became more popular and his appearances more widespread, our yearly progress slows greatly.

Detective Comics #46 features the return (and last appearance until 1977) of our hero’s most formidable scientific adversary. ‘Professor Strange’s Fear Dust’ is followed by issue #47’s drama on a more human scale, ‘Money Can’t Buy Happiness’. This action-packed homily of parental expectation and the folly of greed leads into Batman #4 (Winter 1941) and features ‘The Joker’s Crime Circus’, the piratical plunderings of ‘Blackbeard’s Crew and the Yacht Society’; ‘Public Enemy No.1’ tells a gangster fable in the manner of Jimmy Cagney’s movies such as Angels With Dirty Faces, and ‘Victory For the Dynamic Duo’ involves the pair in the turbulent world of sports gambling.

Detective Comics #48 finds them defending America’s bullion reserves in ‘The Secret Cavern’, and they face an old foe when ‘Clayface Walks Again’ (Detective Comics #49, March 1941), as the deranged horror actor resumes his passion for murder and re-attempts to kill Bruce Wayne’s old girlfriend Julie.

Detective Comics #50 pits Batman and Robin against acrobatic burglars in ‘The Case of the Three Devils’, leading neatly into Batman #5 (Spring 1941). Once again the Joker is the lead villain in ‘The Riddle of the Missing Card’, and then the heroes prove their versatility by solving a crime in Fairy Land via ‘The Book of Enchantment’. ‘The Case of the Honest Crook’ follows, and it is one of the key stories of Batman’s early canon. When a mugger steals only $6 from a victim, leaving much more, his trail leads to a vicious gang who almost beat Robin to death. The vengeance-crazed Dark Knight goes on a rampage of terrible violence that still resonates in the character to this day.

The last story from Batman #5 ‘Crime does Not Pay’ once again deals with kids going bad and potential redemption, and the volume closes with the eerie murder mystery ‘The Witch and the Manuscript of Doom’, which came from World’s Best Comics #1 (Spring 1941 – and destined to become World’s Finest Comics with it’s next issue.)

These are the stories that forged the character and success of Batman. The works of writer Bill Finger, artist/creator Bob Kane and his multi-talented assistants Jerry Robinson and George Roussos are spectacular and timeless examples of perfect superhero fiction. Put them in a thrifty, nifty package like this, include the pop art masterpieces that were the covers of those classics, and you have pretty much the perfect comic book. And you really, really should have it.

© 1940-1941, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers & Terry Austin (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-325-4

Many comics fans share a variation of the same dream. They will awake sweaty, desperate and poignantly despairing because they have seen, touched and read a lost issue, produced by their favourite creator or creators, from their most artistically productive period – which just happens to be the dreamer’s most well-beloved – only to awaken to the gloomy realisation that they already have a complete collection and the dream artefact will never be part of it. Spitefully, images and fragments of the lost issue will tantalisingly return to them for days and months thereafter.

In the 1970s Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin produced a run of stories in Detective Comics (collected as Batman: Strange Apparitions, ISBN 1-84023-109-2) that managed to be nostalgically avant-garde and iconoclastically traditional at the same time, setting both the tone and the character structure of Batman for more than a decade to come, and leading, indirectly, to both the award winning cartoon series and the blockbuster movie of 1989. What could be closer to that cruel dream than the reuniting of these talented artists to tell one more story their own magnificent way?

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, and if I’m totally honest, there are oh, so brief moments where I’m a blown-away kid again, but mostly this feels like a school reunion where you forget yourself for a moment, then catch yourself pogo-ing to “God Save the Queen” in the bar mirror. That was then and you just look like an idiot doing it now.

This plot has once-in-a-lifetime romance Silver Saint-Cloud returning to Gotham City as the fiancé of an aspiring State Governor. She once more meets Bruce Wayne and they take up their old affair. She decides to dump her current man and stay with Wayne, whom she only originally left because she couldn’t cope with his being Batman. But events are further complicated by the Joker whose latest scheme can be best described by his own slogan “Vote for Me …Or I’ll Kill You”.

As well as The Joker’s gubernatorial aspirations Batman also has to deal with the Scarecrow’s unwitting release of Bruce Wayne’s repressed memories of a murder attempt upon himself the night after his parents were killed, Two-Face’s frankly ludicrous clone-plot and a cheesy dream allowing the creators to do their version of many of the Dark Knight’s Rogue’s Gallery.

On a personal note, the co-conspiratorial habit of naming Gotham locations after various Batman creators of the past was charming then, but it’s tired, over-used and not a little annoying now. Just let it go, guys.

Their vision of Batman is a unique and iconic one, and it should never have been shoe-horned into current continuity. It would have been fairer to position it, like many out-of continuity Bat-tales, in its own private universe, perhaps in those distant days of thirty years ago, or even the 1950s.

Not a hoax, not a dream, and definitely not a good use of some very talented people or my childhood memories.

© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.